<n>Alternate title: Why Reddit is so awesome.</n> <img attachment="e01_23056097.jpg" align="left" class="frame">The post <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/btyqj/eyjafjallajökull_isnt_as_foreign_to_english_as_it/" source="Reddit" author="">“Eyjafjallajökull” isn’t as foreign to English as it sounds</a> is in the <i>linquistics</i> Reddit (to which I am subscribed, natch) and is treasure-trove of crowdsourcing goodness vis-à-vis the etymology, <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Eyjafjallajökull.ogg">pronunciation</a> (OGG file<fn>) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_lateral_affricate">unique linquistic characteristics of spoken Icelandic</a>. There is no way I would have guessed the pronunciation from the spelling; the native Icelander seems to elide quite a bit, but what do I know about Icelandic phonetics? Just what I read on Reddit, that's all. The etymological breakdown of <i>Eyjafjallajökull</i>, mapping cognates to Old English is pure Internet gold, though. <bq quote_style="none"><i>eyja</i> means “island”. The direct modern English cognate is eyot. It also survives in the first syllable of “island”, although the spelling of the modern word has been changed to match the Latin-derived “isle”. <i>fjalla</i> means “mountain”. The direct modern English cognate is fell (a mountain or high plateau). <i>jökull</i> means “glacier”. The Old English cognate was gicel, which survives in modern English as the -icle ending of “icicle”. </bq> If this is all a bit much---and the umlaut is bound to throw off many a Statesider---be happy the volcano's not in this town in Wales: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll" source="Wikipedia">Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch</a> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.ogg" source="" author="">pronunciation</a> (OGG file)). <hr> <ft>OGG is an open-source alternative to MP3-encoding. Smug Linux users are probably sorted, as are any OS X users with VLC or Perian installed (which is pretty much every file-sharer out there). Windows users...I have no idea what you need to download in order to play OGG files.</ft>